Liturgical interpretation and Church reform in Renaissance Scotland c.1488-c.1590

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Abstract

Liturgical interpretation is the application of the methods of patristic and medieval
biblical exegesis to public worship. This thesis examines for the first time its
importance in the religious culture of Scotland during a period of renaissance and
reformation. The first section defines the genres and method involved with reference
to the most popular liturgical commentary of that time, the Rationale divinorum
officiorum of William Durandus of Mende (c.1230-1296). The reasons for the
decline of this genre and its neglect by modern scholarship are then explored.
The central section of the thesis employs a wide variety of evidence, including
material culture, to argue, firstly, that liturgical interpretation was a fundamental part
of the culture of Catholic Scotland; secondly, that interest in it was a sign of
commitment to Catholic reform. It is also argued that it had an important place in the
education system and influenced the design and understanding of churches and their
furnishings. Drawing upon inscriptions in liturgical commentaries, networks of
clergy in Scotland committed to Catholic reform and the liturgy are identified. The
‘Aberdeen liturgists’ were the most significant group. Formed by Bishop Elphinstone
of Aberdeen who was consecrated in 1488, it is shown that their influence lasted
beyond 1560 and created a distinctive religious culture in the North-East.
The final section examines what happened to this intellectual tradition during the
period of the Scottish reformations, both the Catholic reform associated with
Archbishop Hamilton in the 1550s and the Protestant reform which triumphed in
1559-60. While interest in liturgical interpretation survived in Aberdeen after 1560,
its use by Catholic writers declined in the later sixteenth century. A Reformed
version of liturgical interpretation did, however, emerge combining an anti-commentary
on the Catholic liturgy with the use of aspects of the medieval method
to interpret the liturgy of the Reformed church. This can be found in official
Protestant texts and, in its fullest form, in the 1590 sermons on the Lord’s Supper by
Robert Bruce. This hitherto unnoticed genre demonstrates an important continuity
across the Reformation divide. It suggests that ‘the Scottish Reformation’ is best seen
as a phenomenon which was both Catholic and Protestant and that the reformers on
both sides had more in common than they or subsequent historians allow.